With game industry names like John Romero and his new company Monkeystone Games joining the wireless and handheld contingent, and social trendspotter Faith Popcorn heralding "24-tainment: Entertainment as a drug", that is, consumers needing constant entertainment from every device, portable games are in the news. In the March 2002 MIT Technology Review, Nick Montfort, in his article From Playstation to PC, describes the popular handheld devices, Cybikos, favored by high school teenagers as, perhaps, "the new face of video gaming—mobile, networked, interactive and remarkably lifelike. More to the point for society at large, its rapid adoption by a generation of young computer users may herald aspects of the future of computing in general…"

In fact, according to the NPD Group, a market researcher in Port Washington, New York, thanks to the popularity of Pokémon, portable game sales grew from $216 million in 1998 to $618 million in 1999. And in January 2001 there was a considerable amount of buzz about Microsoft’s possible foray into the handheld business as rumors of an "Xboy" abounded. For many, Microsoft is considered something of a bellwether and whether or not they join the handheld fray could be indicative of the segment’s future.

A different audience
In October of last year, Ovum, an analyst and consulting company, released a report reflecting their views on wireless games, in particular. In Wireless Games: Playing to Win, authors Rob Gear Roope and Mooka advised "don’t believe the hype" of wireless gaming forecasts that have predicted that this market will be worth nearly $17 billion, approaching the value of the Hollywood movie industry. In the authors’ opinion, both technical and cultural barriers must be overcome before the market really takes off -- and this requires a shift in mindset. That is, they believe wireless games are not about bringing mobility to the high-spend, hardcore gamers. Rather, the real potential lies in bringing games to social players.

Ian Baverstock of Kuju echoed this sentiment in his session, "Mobile Phone Games: Where Are They Now and Where Are They Going?" at GDC-Europe. He assessed that mobile phone games are not the game industry as most know it -- mobile phone game designers need even stronger creative skills and the ability to create for a different market. As Baverstock made clear, mobile phone games are not for the hard core gamer, at least not at the moment. And, certainly a challenge for most in this industry, games must be created with a female audience in mind. In Japan, for example, more females than males play phone games.

The "new" game developers
While wireless and handheld may differ from a consumer marketing standpoint, for the developers it is the concept of making games with a short development cycle and reachable cost, that are also innovative and fun, that has lured more than a few industry veterans into portable game development.

G3 Studios, founded by industry veteran Guido Henkel, creator of Realms of Arkania and Planescape: Torment, is just one example of a developer who, finding it increasingly difficult to self-finance such endeavors, now specializes in producing high-quality game titles for handheld platforms, such as the Pocket PC, Nintendo's Gameboy Advance, Symbian platforms, as well as the next generation of Linux/Java-based handhelds, such as Sharp's Zaurus.

In this environment, developers like Henkel are finding new direction and inspiration. "PC games development has taken on a form that makes it impossible to create games that are individual or driven by a certain vision," says Henkel. "At this point, basically all game companies are owned by large conglomerates. The companies look at the market, see what sells, and copy that. It is a very uninspired approach in which Marketing and Sales people dictate how the next game has to look like, and the result is the flood of me-too products we get to see day in day out."

On the other hand, he says, the Pocket PC and handheld have provided the freedom that he and other developers have been looking for. "We are financially independent," says Henkel, "and as a result we can make our own decisions. We’re nobody’s slaves. The market itself is also very fresh, which allows us to help shape the market itself, as well as business practices and distribution models. Many of the established practices in the PC industry just don’t work for me because over time they have become shackles for the industry rather than beneficial. So, in essence, setting up G3 Studios allowed us to lay out the rules for ourselves, and go play."

For Henkel and others, this type of game development is not about features, selling points, or flashy eye candy – it’s about creativity.

As Henkel explains, "since you are working with more implicit hardware restrictions, handheld platforms are a lot easier to work with. You do not have to take thousands of potential configurations into consideration. You have a defined platform and you go from there. It is much more like console development in that respect."

He disagrees with the idea that hardware limitations hamper development. Rather, Henkel expains, "with 200MHz RISC processing power and devices that have 64MB of RAM and 16-bit color graphic output you can do some serious processing. Loading times are practically non-existent and neither are video card inconsistencies. In a way, it is a developer’s dream that I always try to compare to the ‘good old 8-bit days,’ only on steroids!"

From a development cycle standpoint, the overall turn-around times are also much shorter, giving the developer, in Henkel’s opinion, much more perspective. It is "unbelievably" hard to remain focused and energized over the course of a two or three-year project, he says, while on the Pocket PC, for example, developers are looking at development cycles of a few months, "which are fun from beginning to end. It is much more satisfying that way, which really makes development a lot easier."

The future of wireless and handheld
So, what does the future hold for developers like Monkeystone and G3? According to the Ovum report, consumers will be willing to pay only where they perceive value and, given those parameter, the company predicts the wireless gaming market will be worth around $4 billion by 2006, an amount significantly lower than some industry expectations.

DFC’s estimates for the portable market included the Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Sega Nomad, Sega Game Gear and Tiger Electronics game.com. In DFC’s opinion, "the market for portable systems is being kept alive by the efforts of Nintendo who kept the Game Boy market possible with products like Game Boy Pocket, GameBoy Camera, the Pokémon software series and most importantly Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Color showed there was definitely an opportunity for a new portable system to be released and enjoy strong sales."

Says David Cole of DFC, "The short of it is that this is a market dominated by Nintendo both on the hardware and software side. It is very hard for third party publishers to make money. Nintendo is forcing the price of games down toward $30 and by the time a third party publisher pays the cost of goods on the cartridge and the royalty to Nintendo there is very little left over."